Cluster 1 1/4 deg south following Kappa Cas, viewed again March 8 and 11, according to Hoskin (2005), footnote No. 97. Missing the identity may have resulted from a misprint; On Feb 23, Caroline noted erronously that this cluster would precede, instead of follow, Kappa Cas. William Herschel probably quotes this observation as discovery when he writes “CH 1784” in his catalog, while the original discovery was her No. 11.

Caroline Lucretia Herschel was born March 16, 1750 in Hanover, Germany.She was the fifth of six children.A battle with small pox at the tender age of three disfigured her left eye and pock marked her cheeks and face.

Caroline helped her brother William with the discovery of Uranus on March 13, 1781.She was the first woman to discover a comet August 1, 1786, and by 1797 she had discovered seven more comets.

Caroline wrote her own epitaph, which was engraved on her tombstone upon her death on January 9, 1848.It reads, The eyes of her who is glorified here below turned to the starry heavens 

Williamina Paton Stevens Fleming

Born May 15, 1857 Dundee, Scotland died May 21, 1911 Boston, Mass.

Fleming was the housemaid to Professor Edward Charles Pickering and was hired in 1881 as a clerk at Harvard College Observatory after Pickering became frustrated with his male assistants and said his maid could do a better job.

Williamina Flemings Triangular Wisp (NGC 6979) is part of the Veil Nebula.Discovered in 1904 it is also known as Pickerings Triangle and Simeis 3-188.

Current estimates place this supernova remnant at about 1800 light years from Earth.The entire Veil Nebula complex of which Pickerings Triangle is but a portion of has an apparent diameter of about 3 degrees.The tangled mass of star ejecta in the main body of the complex along with the delicate twisted filaments trailing out from that region make this object a beautiful and rewarding target for astro-photographers.

She, along with Edward Charles Pickering recognized the unusual faintness of white dwarfs in 1910.

Fleming contributed to the cataloguing of stars for the Henry Draper Catalogue.She catalogued more than 10,000 stars in nine years.During her work, she discovered 59 gaseous nebulae, over 310 variable stars, and 10 novae.In 1907, she published a list of 222 variable stars that she had discovered.She published her discovery of white dwarfs in 1910.

She discovered 94 Wolf Rayet Stars.

Fleming discovered spectral variations from Beta Lyrae, indicating it was a double star.

Williamina was made curator in 1989 of the astronomical photographs at Harvard Observatory.She was succeeded by her protégé, Annie Jump Cannon.

In 1999, Mrs. Fleming discovered the Horsehead Nebula on Harvard plate B2312, describing the bright nebula (later known as IC-434) as having a semicircular indentation 5 minutes in diameter 30 minutes south of Zeta (Orionis).William Pickering, who took the photograph, speculated that the spot was dark obscuring matter.

Annie Jump Cannon Born December 11, 1863 in Dover, Delaware. Died April 13, 1941 in Cambridge, Mass.

We can thank Cannon for the mnemonic, Oh Be a Fine Girl and Kiss Me.She applied a third system to stars and divided them into the spectral classes O, B, F, G, K, M.

Henrietta LeavittBorn 1868. Died in 1921 of cancer in Cambridge, Mass.She was hired by Edward Pickering to measure the brightness of stars at Harvard College Observatory since women were not allowed to operate telescopes in the 1900s.

Leavitt is credited with discovering period-luminosity relationship the pattern of variable stars showing that brighter variable stars had longer periods.It was Leavitt that led the way for groundbreaking distance measurements to be made by Edwin Hubble.

Louisa D. Wells discovered the variability of SS Cygni, a dwarf nova. No details of the discovery have been found but early plates at Harvard College indicate a discovery date sometime before September 23, 1896.SS Cygni is one of the most observed variable stars in the sky.

Dorrit Hoffleit born March 12, 1907 in Florence, Alabama died April 9, 2007.

Hoffleit and Harlan J. Smith co-discovered the optical variability of the first discovered quasar 3C 273.

3C 273 is a quasar located in the constellation Virgo.With a magnitude of ~12.9 and is the optically brightest quasar in the sky.It is also one of the closest quasars with a redshift, z. of 0.158.It is one of the first extragalactic X-ray sources discovered in 1970.

3C 273 is located in the constellation Virgo at Right ascension 12h29m 06.7s.Declination +02 03 09 and is visible in both the northern and southern hemispheres in May.It is bright enough to be observed with large scopes.

Hoffleit is the author of the Bright Star Catalogue.

Mareta N. West (1915-1998)was an American astrogeologist raised in Oklahoma.She chose the site of the first manned lunar landing in the 1960s.In 1969, Mareta was the only woman on NASAs Geology Experiment Team for the landing of Apollo 11.She pinpointed the exact landing spot on the moon for the fragile lunar lander called the Eagle.

Lyudmila Geogievna Karachkina is a Soviet Russian or Ukrainian astronomer working at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory that discovered 3063 Makhaon is a Jupiter trojan asteroid that orbits in the Lagrangian point of the Sun-Jupiter system in the Greek Camp of Trojan asteroids.It was named after the Greek hero Makhaon, who fought during the Trojan War.It was discovered by Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina in Msuchnyj, Ukraine on August 4, 1983.

Tamara Mikhajlovna Smirnova is a Russian born astronomer that co- discovered the periodic comet 74P/Smirnova-Chernykh, along with Nikolaj Stepanovich Chernykh in late March 1975.

The next perihelion of 74P/Smirnova is July 30 2009

Margaret Burbridge

This woman is one of my heroes.If you read anything about her you will find she made a lot of headway in a world predominantly filled with men.

She was denied a Carnegie Fellowship in 1945 because receiving it meant she would have to observe at Mount Wilson observatory, a place reserved for men only at the time.She did finally gain access to Mount Wilson in 1955 posing as her husbands assistant.

Burbridge was one of the first to study quasars and rotation curves of galaxies.